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march on washington
Protecting the Dream by Fighting Back Against the Racist ‘DEI Hire’ Slur
This term has become a dog whistle for those who wish to diminish the accomplishments of Black women like VP Kamala Harris, wrongly suggesting that they are unqualified for their well-earned positions.
Aug 28, 2024
August 28, 1963 marks one of the most significant events in our nation’s history. On that day, more than a quarter million people assembled to participate in the historic “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” where Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech and demanded the civil and economic rights of Black Americans that were promised in the founding documents of this nation. That call to action, shared by many gathered in the nation’s capital, is one that still reverberates today.
The origins of this march trace back over two decades to 1941, when labor organizer A. Philip Randolph, along with activist Bayard Rustin, created the March on Washington Movement, which was designed to place pressure on the federal government to establish employment protections for Black people. Randolph and Rustin were both motivated to end segregation and racial discrimination that denied Black Americans fair opportunities in employment. Randolph eventually became the director of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, while Rustin became one of the central organizers of the 1963 march. Through their efforts, Randolph, Rustin, and many others brought people from all over the nation to Washington, D.C., to use their collective power to foster lasting change. The impact of the March on Washington contributed to the eventual signing of the Civil Rights Act the following year.
While this may be well-known—and for some, distant—history, some of the same social ills that the marchers sought to eliminate are still with us with renewed intensity. And the progress and equality they have fought for is once again under attack, this time by conservative organizations who are using hard-fought civil rights laws and anti-discrimination legislation against the very people these laws were designed to protect.
On August 28, 2024, I share this pledge once again with our nation, with the hope that we as a society will continue to uphold this promise and stand against that which threatens diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Our nation is once again fighting against a wave of race-based attacks against marginalized communities, this time under the guise of opposing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts. So far this year, at least 37 federal lawsuits targeting DEI programming have been filed. The year before that, at least 65 bills were introduced to limit DEI in higher education across 25 states. This coordinated campaign aims to rid our nation of DEI offices and programs, end anti-bias trainings, and stop funding for the support for diversity. As studies have consistently shown, employers and educational institutions that emphasize and encourage diverse workforces and student bodies regularly outperform their counterparts among various measures.
Although many in this anti-DEI movement claim that racism no longer exists in our nation and thus nullifying the need for diversity, there is no denying the facts: Racial wealth divides persist, and people of color continue to endure systemic discrimination. Yet, some flatly reject the myriad data on the clear benefits of having diverse workforces and classrooms, and the pressure campaign launched by the conservative movement has caused many businesses to fold and abolish their DEI commitments and efforts completely.
And this movement is now becoming more blatant with its racist motivations, not only attacking universities and businesses, but also directly attacking people of color. We see it in the grotesque attacks on the first woman of color nominated for president, Vice President Kamala Harris, where right-wing activists have pejoratively labeled her as a “DEI hire.” This term has become a dog whistle for those who wish to diminish the accomplishments of Black women, wrongly suggesting that they are unqualified for their well-earned positions, and that but for their race and gender, they would not be where they are. Make no mistake: Right-wing organizations and activists are now using the term “DEI hire” as a slur to strip away the achievements of people of color who are in positions of power.
It is vital that we fight back against unfounded and dangerous attacks on DEI. Our nation cannot achieve the equality we hold as a moral imperative if we allow the progress we’ve made to be eroded. We can all look to the past as a road map to chart a better future where we fight for a nation–and world–free of discrimination and inequality. Following Dr. King’s speech, A. Philip Randolph invited those in attendance at the march to take a pledge:
Standing before the Lincoln Memorial on the 28th of August, in the centennial year of emancipation, I affirm my complete personal commitment to the struggle for jobs and freedom for Americans. To fulfill that commitment, I pledge that I will not relax until victory is won. I pledge that I will join and support all actions undertaken in good faith in accord with the time-honored Democratic tradition of nonviolent protest, of peaceful assembly, and petition, and of redress through the courts and the legislative process. I pledge to carry the message of the march to my friends and neighbors back home and arouse them to an equal commitment and equal effort. I will march and I will write letters. I will demonstrate and I will vote. I will work to make sure that my voice and those of my brothers ring clear and determine from every corner of our land. I pledge my heart and my mind and my body unequivocally and without regard to personal sacrifice, to the achievement of social peace through social justice.
As we commemorate the March on Washington, let us reflect on the past so that it emboldens us to fight for the future. And so, on August 28, 2024, I share this pledge once again with our nation, with the hope that we as a society will continue to uphold this promise and stand against that which threatens diversity, equity, and inclusion. It is up to us to ensure that the progress made by those who marched is not undone by those who seek to divide us, and that the labor and freedoms of all Americans remain protected.
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The Climate Movement and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.
In a divided America, there is at least one universal left, and that is the shared world we inhabit.
Aug 31, 2023
It may not surprise readers of this newsletter when I say that my great American hero is the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. To mark the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, I’ve been reading Jonathan Eig’s very fine new biography and re-reading for the umpteenth time the unsurpassable three-volume account of King and the civil rights movement by Taylor Branch.
And as ever I come back to the same place: King’s heroism came from his unmatched ability to combine the prophetic and the practical. We have plenty of great Americans who exemplified one or the other, but perhaps only Lincoln comes close to mixing them with the same alchemical power. King had many tools that lent him strength: He was able to listen, capable of keeping his ego in check, naturally empathetic, grounded from youth in the (not inconsiderable) politics of the church. He had the support of a strong family and a stronger wife; all of that allowed a kind of low-key and appropriate messianism that never overwhelmed him. He wasn’t a saint (the job description of prophets and saints are very different) but he was radiant.
But King also had the advantage of timing. He spoke to an America that could—in its middle—be moved by the two appeals that were his specialty: to the shared Christian faith of the great majority of Americans, and to a shared sense of America’s unique small-d democratic history. He was, obviously, no sucker: He knew as well as anyone the limits of both that faith and that history. But through those lenses America could glimpse his deeper truths.
This summer almost everyone has a) sucked smoke b) dodged floods c) endured preposterous heat. Many have hit the trifecta.
We’re not in that America any more, which perhaps helps explain why the many speakers at this weekend’s 60th anniversary of the March reached fewer souls. There’s little that’s universal left to appeal to in a deeply divided America. Which is why, as my last book argues, it was probably unwise of progressives to surrender the flag and the cross, but that Jordan has been crossed in reverse.
Still, there is at least one universal left, and that is the shared world we inhabit. No one invoked this more movingly on the weekend than Rev. Lennox Yearwood, one of King’s great heirs. The founder of the Hip Hop Caucus (and a board member with me at Third Act), Yearwood used his two minutes to get a lot across:
We stand here because climate change is a civil rights issue. We have a right to clean air and a right to clean water. And it’s critical for us to understand that this climate crisis that is happening from California to Arizona, where our mothers and fathers are literally cooking to death in their homes… And we understand right now that to be in this movement… that we must be intersectional environmentalists. And that means that we must connect the dots and break the silos. That means that racial justice is climate justice. And climate justice is racial justice. And we understand that we must connect a dot between voter suppression and healthcare and education. We understand that we must fight for those who are fighting for clean water in Jackson, Mississippi. And we must fight for those who are in Atlanta, Georgia, saying, stop cop city.
We applaud this administration for what they’ve done with the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law. We applaud them, but that’s not enough because you can’t put up solar panels on Monday and build pipelines for liquified natural gas on Tuesday. You can’t put renewable energy on Wednesday and discuss an all-of-the-above strategy for fossil fuels on Thursday. And so what we are calling for right now are three main things that first, that we must stop the expansion of petrochemicals across this country right now. And secondly, we must ban vinyl chloride, that explosive chloride that exploded in East Palestine. And the last thing, if the administration is watching right now, we must declare a climate emergency!
To unpack a little, as the scholars say, it seems to me that Yearwood is making at least two key points. One is that there are specific parts of the climate crisis that are far worse for poor people of color, here and around the world, and that empowering them is a key task, both for practical reasons of power and moral reasons of justice. It’s a point made with great grace by Rhiana Gunn-Wright, the transcendently nerdy author of the Green New Deal, in an essay that came out this morning in Hammer & Hope, the new online magazine of Black politics and culture. As Gunn-Wright put it
More than 170,000 green jobs have been created in the wake of the IRA, a majority of them in red states, some of which, like Texas and Georgia, have the largest and fastest-growing Black populations in the country.
I should be happy about that. I want to be happy about that. By “derisking” clean technology through public subsidies and other forms of industrial policy, the IRA is succeeding, at least in its mission to spur private investment in clean energy and low-carbon goods. And after 40 years of exclusively neoliberal economic policy, that is something to celebrate. But the transition to clean energy, like every other economic transition, is inherently distributive and redistributive—especially in a capitalist society—and this time, we need Black people to significantly benefit. Yet, with the exception of a few targeted policies, the IRA and the debates that have emerged since its passage suggest that the U.S. is again (at this big age!) relying on white supremacy to decide how to allocate the power and resources that come from going green.
Her recommendations are tremendously useful (the whole essay is essential reading), and they include some clear specifics:
For the green transition to be equitable, racial justice must thread through all the decisions about how it is structured and how public resources are distributed. One of the best ways to do this is to expand Justice40, a Biden administration initiative that aims to direct 40% of the benefits of federal clean energy and other climate investments to disadvantaged communities. The White House should update that order to include all of the programs in the IRA, and agencies should ensure that 40% of the funding (not nebulous “benefits”) are going to the communities identified by the White House’s new screening tool to identify communities that have faced historical environmental and economic injustices. In programs where it is not possible to ensure that 40% of funding reaches frontline communities, as with individual tax credits, agencies need to create partnerships with community organizations and local governments to try to increase tax-credit participation among eligible Black households.
This seems inarguable to me. But to the degree that it requires a big movement to get it done, it requires an elevated sense of justice that I’m not sure we have at the moment. In King’s world, a concern for justice grew out of both religion and patriotism, and with those gutted it’s harder to reach the broad middle.
But it also—and this is the second part of Yearwood’s message—seems inarguable that we have a rare moment to establish that new universal. This summer almost everyone has a) sucked smoke b) dodged floods c) endured preposterous heat. Many have hit the trifecta. Yes, some people have had it worse than others, and since this is America those people are likely to be poor and Black. But we’re at the point where everyone can start to feel the threat. (Even asocial billionaires, though they tend to respond by buying up land they imagine will offer an escape). That collective fear/sadness/anger/maybe a little hope constitutes a shared self-interest—one that we can build on to make the kind of broad movement that might make justice real again.
I think it’s likely we’ll get to see this strategy play out in the months ahead at a place that Gunn-Wright mentions in her essay: Calcasieu Pass, Louisiana, site of yet another proposed giant LNG terminal. And I imagine that Yearwood, concentrating on his work with Beyond Petrochemicals, will be heavily involved. But that is a story to come.
For now, enough to end with this thought. Were MLK still alive (and it’s not impossible—his friend and colleague Harry Belafonte was born two years earlier and just died in May) it seems certain to me that the climate crisis would be at the top of his agenda, because he was drawn to any project that emphasized commonality. The Poor People’s Campaign, which he was building when he was murdered, was a multiracial effort to unite impoverished people for radical change; the climate movement is perhaps the first truly global campaign, designed to bring everyone who lives beneath our shared sky on board. As Dr. King put it, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.” Climate change is the ultimate proof of that truth.
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The March on Washington: More Than a Speech
The entire event remains a historic turning point in the ongoing struggle for civil rights, leaving an indelible mark on the history of the United States, while also inspiring future generations to continue the fight for equality.
Aug 28, 2023
The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, celebrating its 60th anniversary this month, is widely remembered for the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. However, this historic event, envisaged for the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, was about much more than a single speech. It brought together a diverse coalition of activists and leaders who passionately advocated for civil rights and equality in a way that transcended the eloquent but limited confines of a singular dream.
The seeds of the March on Washington were planted in 1941 by African American labor leader A. Philip Randolph, who proposed a mass demonstration in the nation’s capital to demand economic opportunities and an end to racial discrimination. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an Executive Order banning racial discrimination in defense industries, Randolph relented. However, the idea of a march on Washington persisted, and in 1963, Randolph and other civil rights leaders revived it, this time expanding its scope to address broader issues of racial equality.
While the “I Have a Dream” speech has become synonymous with the march, it is important to acknowledge the voices of other influential speakers who shared their visions and perspectives on that day. One such speaker was the late distinguished Congressman John Lewis. Representing the youthful and fearless Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Lewis delivered a searing critique of the U.S. government, emphasizing the urgency of achieving equality and justice for African Americans.
Women played a noteworthy, if often overlooked, part in the March on Washington.
“We want our freedom, and we want it now!” he defiantly boomed from a podium overlooking the National Mall.
Walter Reuther, the president of the United Automobile Workers, was also an impactful speaker. The influential labor leader’s speech acknowledged the labor movement’s long-standing commitment to social justice and workers’ rights. While emphasizing the importance of fair wages, decent working conditions, and job opportunities, Reuther claimed that the struggle for Black civil rights encompassed not only the termination of racial discrimination but also the improvement and empowerment of the working class.
Women played a noteworthy, if often overlooked, part in the March on Washington. Anna Arnold Hedgeman, an African American civil rights activist and educator, was the only woman on the organizing committee. Battling the deeply ingrained sexism that failed to appreciate the momentous role that women had played in the movement, she leveraged her estimable skills not only to ensure the demonstration’s success, but also to compel its leaders to include a tribute to Black women.
Another influential woman associated with the march was African American civil rights activist and legal scholar Pauli Murray. In a letter to Randolph, Murray delivered a scorching rebuke of march leaders for excluding women beyond token recognition—poignantly underscoring the intersections of race and gender discrimination. “It is indefensible to call a national march on Washington and send out a call which contains the name of not a single woman leader,” she wrote. “‘Tokenism,’” she continued, “is as offensive when applied to women as when applied to Negroes, and... I have not devoted the greater part of my adult life to the implementation of human rights to now condone any policy which is not inclusive.”
The 1963 March on Washington remains a historic turning point in the ongoing struggle for civil rights, leaving an indelible mark on the history of the United States, while also inspiring future generations to continue the fight for equality. As such, the legacy of the march continues to reverberate through the country, connecting with contemporary issues of civil rights and social justice in 2023. The spirit of the march lives on in the ongoing struggles for justice and equity.
Black Lives Matter (BLM), one of the most prominent movements of recent years, has echoed the calls for justice that resonated during the 1963 march. BLM seeks to address systemic racism, particularly in relation to police brutality and the criminal justice system. The movement emphasizes the value of Black lives and demands an end to the violence and disproportionate treatment faced by Black individuals. Its significance lies in its ability to mobilize communities, raise awareness, and push for meaningful reforms to combat racial injustice.
The legacy of the march lives on through the Black Lives Matter movement, the fight against police brutality, and efforts to ensure voting rights.
Learning from the shortcomings of the March on Washington, BLM notably embraced the intersection of race and gender rights by actively taking on issues of sexism and discrimination, including against the LGBTQ+ community.
Efforts to end police brutality have become a focal point in the fight for civil rights and social justice. The tragic killings of numerous unarmed Black people, often at the hands of law enforcement, have sparked public outrage and animated protests and calls for police accountability and reform. These movements draw inspiration from the march, as they aim to continue the work of dismantling structures that perpetuate discrimination and ensuring equal protection under the law for all.
Another crucial issue tied to the march’s legacy is the fight to protect and expand voting rights, including newly proposed legislation named for Congressman Lewis. The march occurred during a time when African Americans faced significant barriers to voting, and its participants advocated for equal access to the ballot box. Today, voter suppression efforts continue to disproportionately impact communities of color, while activists and organizations work toward dismantling these barriers and promoting voter participation as a fundamental means of taking part in the democratic process. It is also a path toward achieving other significant civil rights goals and objectives—such as fair housing.
In 2023, the relationship between the 1963 march and contemporary civil rights and social justice issues is undeniable. The legacy of the march lives on through the Black Lives Matter movement, the fight against police brutality, and efforts to ensure voting rights. These movements, inspired by the spirit and determination of the march’s participants, continue to challenge systemic inequities, and strive for a more just and inclusive society. As we reflect on the progress made since 1963, the struggle for civil rights and social justice remains as critical today as it was then, reminding us that the fight for equality is an ongoing journey.
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